Beaded Basket for Sale - Christies

A CHARLES II BEADWORK LAYETTE BASKET Lot 480, Dec 2nd, 2014 Christie's Sale 5870

There is another beaded basket for sale at Christie's, so if you have been keeping a file folder with them for study, get over to the site and look at the pictures up close.  This one is similar to one at the V&A with a square net worked in panels to go over the metal frame.  The frame is uncovered in spots so if you want to get a feeling of how the piece is worked there are places to take a peak!

Tricia

Help Winterthur Acquire Wonderful Pattern Book

Winterthur has an opportunity to purchase a set of 18th century pattern books for embroidery.  These were created by a German drawing master named Johann Netto.  The books are unique because not only do they include patterns found on 18th century German samplers, they have worked examples of the motifs in them!  The three volume set is amazing and the embroidery and instructions are worthy of being in a museum.  There are just a few pictures attached to this blog post.  The MET has a copy of the book and has a nice little write up about it on their Heilbrunn Timeline.  One of the volumes (from a different collection) has been digitized and can be 'leafed through' (give each page time to load) on Archive.org.

Any amount is vastly appreciated (a bunch of $5 checks add up!).  Checks can be made out to Winterthur and sent to:

Winterthur Museum Pattern Book
Attn. Linda Eaton
Winterthur Museum
Winterthur DE, 19735

The Geek In Me Loves this Stuff!

A wonderful article about a Coats of Arms piece likely worked in Boston is finally up on the web and able to be shared with you all.  I love things like this because they use the techniques of my grad school days to solve problems associated with historical objects.  In this case, there was a bit of the lead white paint on the un-embroidered surface which said "Gold".  X-ray radiography was used by Angela Duckwall at Winterthur to figure out why the word was there and if there was more under the embroidery!

Enjoy the read and be amazed at the pictures

(Link just updated - it should work now)

Tricia

What's up Behind the Scenes?

If you enjoy the blog, you might not know that there is a secret blog running as well!  I have a social network site for those in my online classes called NING.  Ning is a place, kinda like Facebook (but better) where forums are ongoing with photos and personal pages.  Think of it like a meet-up spot for everyone who goes gaga for 17th century embroidery.  It is unbelievably lively with posts of embroideries in process for caskets, stumpwork, etc. as well as some amazing sharing of research photos.  Because of the private nature (password controled), if a group visits a museum and the curator gives permission (to me) for the pictures to be posted, the group then shares them.  Imagine that - it's like you were a mouse in their pocket without the expensive airfare to Australia or England or wherever! It's one of those unexpected benefits of classes.

It is also where we post pics like this.  Here is the king off a piece of stumpwork I am teaching as a side project in the Stumpwork course to show detailed how to on making such things as boots, hands, and the ever scary - faces.  This is one of the lessons for next month's installment.

It is hard to tell how much relief is involved in this figure - but he is almost 1 cm off the surface in most places and then gets a big fatter in others.  His queen will be finished soon and I will try to post pictures of her.

Tricia

On My Christmas List

The new book by Naomi Tarrant (former curator National Museums of Scotland) chronicling the emergence of a distinctive Scottish sampler style is on my short list for Christmas.  There are so few books being published now in embroidery that one has to both support and enjoy those that are able to be published.

Unfortunately at the moment there is only one US vendor (that I know of -- please let me know of other sources) - Amazon.  Amazon has been the locus of price undercutting that has made it even harder for volumes like this in special interests to be published.

You can buy direct from England as well through the publisher.

The book name is 'Remember Now Thy Creator' Scottish Girls' Samplers, 1700-1872 by Naomi E. A. Tarrant

A Yummy Casket

This little (6 3/4" x 8" x 5") casket was sold recently by Sotheby's and is almost too yummy and tiny to mention!  A fall front piece and if the dates painted on it are to be believed, it is a quite early piece.   Dated 1658 it falls into a set of about a dozen dated pieces in the 1650s. Not surprisingly, these dated pieces also have quite a variety of shapes and configurations too.  I wish the dates were embroidered into the piece as so few out there have painted details.  Not being commonly seen, I have to reserve judgement on the date as I have seen so many pieces that have had their embroidery 'brightened' with paint over the years.

But it is still really sweet and makes one want to make a small box too!

Interesting History from a Sampler

This was a post today from the Sampler Consortium and after reading the article, it seemed a good thing to repost.  A sampler by "Charlotte Turner, Liberated African" is now in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum after a donation by Ruth Nutt, a collector of embroidery and other art objects.

Through the announcement of the donation, a reporter became interested in the description of an 1831 (pre-civil war) liberated African making a sampler at 10 and wanted to know more.  So she went on a fact finding mission which is at odds with the history that others want to ascribe to the object (many want the piece to be an American sampler).  It is an interesting written perspective from someone who has no previous work in the sampler field, and highlights as well the difficulties that museums have with interpretation and wishes for an object.

Read the article here

Tricia